To Protect & Serve Read Free Page B

wound the strand of hair sliding down her face over her ear. One more furtive glance over the divide between them. This time she was thankful to find only his silhouette. Good. At least he wasn’t going to think she was trying to make eye contact or something. Casually she sat up, nodding to herself as she closed her eyes. Her brain coached itself on what to do and what not to do. However, when she opened her eyes, the fact that his arm was again only a foot from her jumped into her consciousness.
    Nervously half of her gaze followed the sculptured forearm up past the black sleeve that covered everything from his elbow up to his shoulder. She shut her eyes, trying to block him out, but the second she opened them he was back. However, this time the blue pools were back too. Her gaze locked with his, and she knew he knew she was looking. Quickly she smiled as she wound the errant hair around her ear.
    “Nice music,” she said.
    “Yeah.” His smile was better than she had remembered.
    She wanted to say something else, but her brain was scrambled by the proximity of his arm and the disarming way his gaze fell to the table as if her eyes were too intense to hold on. “You come here a lot?” she asked, wholly reprimanding herself for pursuing when she should be thankful he wasn’t.
    “No, not really.” He shook his head and shifted a little, and this time his smile was less sure. “We’re celebrating.”
    “Oh, really? Us too.” With her tone she tried to coax his full gaze back to her although she was only mildly successful. “My little sister’s getting married next weekend.”
    “Oh.” This smile was stronger. “Lucky her.”
    “Yeah, lucky me too.” Lisa shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Bachelorette party. Woohoo.”
    This time he laughed outright. “Sounds terrible.”
    “Well, as long as they don’t drag me out there, it’s not so bad.”
    He nodded. “I hear you there.”
    For a moment she sat, gathering her scattering sanity and trying to get her gaze not to notice the gold cross shining atop the solid black shirt at his neck. “So, what’re you celebrating?”
    However, at that moment her attention snapped to the other edge of his table where two of his friends slid into the booth with him without pretense.
    “Man, it’s hot out there!” the girl with the nearly-black, wavy hair said, fanning herself with her hand as Lisa self-consciously slunk back into her own world.
    “Yeah. I’m sure it’s the dance floor,” elbow guy said with a laugh as he retreated back to his own table.
    “Hey, how would you know?” the guy in the skin-hugging, brown-gold pullover shirt asked. “It’s not like you can tell from way over here.” He took a drink. “Man, have you seen Ramsey? That guy’s insane. He’s got like a whole bachelorette party dancing with him.”
    Lisa’s ears tried to peel themselves from the conversation as she slid farther down into the booth.
    “Yeah, well, dancing isn’t everything,” elbow guy said as he laid his forearm on the booth back, causing the remaining sanity in Lisa’s head to disperse.
    Lunacy. It was the far side of it; however, the alcohol or something had a hold of her because Lisa’s brain took a nice little journey to the middle of that hot dance floor with her in his arms, swaying in time with only one another. A low growl of disgust with herself crawled into her gut. Where was her willpower? He was a guy after all. A guy. And that meant only one thing—trouble.
    “Lisa-girl! What are you doing sitting over here all by yourself?” Haley asked as she, Bryn, Chandra, and a tall, well-built black man danced up to the table. He had his arms around each of the two girls.
    “We found ourselves a fireman!” Bryn said loud enough for the whole bar to hear.
    “Hey,” the man said with a glance to the table next to them, “well, look what we have here!”
    Not one part of Lisa liked the sound of that statement.
    “Man, you ladies must have some